The pharmaceutical giant has adopted a variety of BI and BA tools to tackle everything from ad hoc reporting to predictive modeling.

Few industries sort through as much data as pharmaceuticals do. At Pfizer, the need for accurate, up-to-date information is nearly insatiable. As a result, the company has adopted a variety of tools—from IBM, SAP, SAS and TIBCO—to tackle everything from ad hoc reporting to predictive modeling.

“The nature of business is changing, and it’s important to understand things at a very granular level,” says Kelly Shen, BI lead for biopharmaceuticals. “We’re interested in viewing historical trends and patterns and applying them to current drugs so we can make better projections and plan appropriately. We want to know how pulling certain levers might impact the market.”

Pfizer is attempting to broaden the reach of its BI and BA strategies by taking a more comprehensive view of the business, Shen says. Instead of looking at customer data alone, the company is adding other dimensions, including physician data, managed-care data and demographic information.

“The goal is to look at different customer segments and gain greater insights about them,” Shen explains.

The result? Pfizer has introduced sophisticated dashboards and analytics capabilities within an “Intelligence Storefront.” The system helps the company make faster, fact-based decisions; comply with regulations; optimize fulfillment; and encourage collaborative decision making. The company is tailoring these dashboards to fit the needs of different groups, ranging from unit presidents and district managers to marketing teams.

About 75,000 employees worldwide now use the BI and BA tools, and Shen says the system will continue to evolve and grow. “We want to gain a competitive advantage by knowing exactly what’s driving performance and revenue,” Shen explains.